Catalogue Of Paintings By Joaquin Sorolla Y Bastida

By Leonard Williams

Originally published in 1909, this classic book contains a wealth of information on the famous artist Joaquin Sorolla Y Bastida and his works, and will make a valuable addition to the bookshelf of anyone with an interest in the subject. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Nov 7, 2012
• ISBN: 9781447498322

Book preview

Catalogue

THE ART OF

JOAQUÍN SOROLLA

I

BIOGRAPHICAL

JOAQUÍN SOROLLA, the son of humble parents, was born at Valencia, Spain, on February 27, 1863. Two years later, the cholera epidemic which was raging in that city carried off both his father and his mother, and the orphan, together with his infant sister, was adopted by his aunt upon the mother’s side, Doña Isabel Bastida, and her husband, Don José Piqueres.

When Joaquín was of an age to go to school, he manifested little inclination for his studies proper, though he revealed a stealthy and incorrigible craze for scrawling embryonic drawings in his copy-books, until, impressed by the precocious merit and persistence of this extra-pedagogic labor, one of his masters was intelligent enough to overlook his inattention to the tasks appointed him, and even made him surreptitious presents of material for the prosecution of his hobby.

In course of time, since young Sorolla made no visible progress at his lessons, his uncle, who was by trade a locksmith, removed the boy from school and placed him in his workshop, while yet allowing him to attend some drawing-classes, held at a local school for artisans; and here his resolution and his talent swept off all the prizes; so that, on reaching fifteen years, he was permitted to renounce the locksmith’s shop and finally devote himself to studying art.

He now became a student of the Academia de Bellas Artes of San Carlos, which is also at Valencia, and won, almost immediately, the triple prize for coloring, drawing from the model, and perspective. About this time, too, he received assistance from a philanthropic gentleman named García (whose daughter, Doña Clotilde, he subsequently married), and so was able to remain for several years at the academy. During these years he visited Madrid on three occasions, and exhibited, first of all, three paintings which aroused no curiosity, and afterward his earliest important work, namely, a canvas of large dimensions titled The Second of May. The second visit to the Spanish capital was longer than the other two, and young Sorolla utilized it to his best advantage by copying the masterpieces of Velazquez and Ribera in the Prado Gallery.

The Second of May,¹ which represents the desperate resistance of the Madrileños to the French invading army, during the Spanish War of Independence, is by no means a flawless work, although the drawing is correct and spirited; nor is it even an unusually precocious effort for a painter who was more than twenty years of age. Yet it contained one striking innovation; for it was painted in the open air, Sorolla choosing for his natural and informal studio the arena of the spacious bull-ring of Valencia, where he enwreathed his models with dense smoke in scrupulous reconstitution of authentic scenes of war.

In the same year (1884), another of his paintings won for him the scholarship offered by his native town for studying art in Italy. Accordingly, he repaired to Rome and stayed there for some months, proceeding thence to Paris, and returning not long afterward to the Italian capital. However, at the exhibitions, held in Paris, of the works of Bastien-Lepage and Menzel, Sorolla’s eyes were opened to the revolution which was being effected in the history of modern painting;¹ and even after his return to Italy, this novel and regenerative movement in French art continued to engage his preference. Already, therefore, in the opening stage of his career, the youthful and spontaneous realist of Valencia—the compatriot of Goya and the fellow-citizen of Spagnoletto—was captivated and encouraged by the parallel yet independent realism of a German and a French contemporary.

13

On his return to Rome, where false and academic methods still pretended to their old supremacy, Sorolla, led by duty rather than by desire, produced a large religious painting titled The Burial of the Saviour, marked by his wonted excellence of color